Serena Williams at her press conference before the Montreal tournament Photo: AP

Serena Williams isn’t just warming up for the US Open, she’s getting preparation for the press conferences.

The world’s No. 1 player arrived in Montreal on Monday, getting ready to play in the Rogers Cup for the first time in 14 years, but she left her introductory press conference after a reporter brought up her doubles match with sister Venus at Wimbledon, in which Serena stumbled around and retired from the match. Williams and her handlers blamed the incident on a virus.

A trainer looks at Serena at Wimbledon.Photo: Reuters

Williams discussed Wimbledon for the first time last week at the Bank of the West tournament, calling it “scary.” She didn’t feel like talking about it again.

“Do you understand why people found Wimbledon so frightening, to watch you there?” a reporter asked.

“We talked about that last week. I think you missed that one. Thank you,” Williams said.

The 17-time grand slam champion then removed her microphone and left the room.

Is Serena overreacting?

This
reporter wasn't asking her if she was well enough to play now, although that
question was already answered via her pre-tournament press interview at
the "West bank classic" but instead was posing a question that could
only be viewed as malicious.

Let's be
clear here, after the Wimbledon incident, every one and their uncle and aunt
acted like Ricky Ricardo admonishing Lucy” You got some splaining to do".
Well here is a news flash; she doesn’t, despite fools like Martina Navratilova
and Jane McManus acting like she committed a crime, she got ill period, and
made a wrong decision in her attempt to play in her condition. It became a
spectacle and the doctors on hand (paid by the tournament organization) attended
to her, and they (who are medically qualified) informed us (John public, that
is you and I) that the cause was a viral illness.

The only thing she had to be gracious about is questions concerning
her health on returning to the tour, and she did that emphatically. She also
made it very clear that she had moved on, you could stay with it if you want to
(maybe with not much else to do) but she for obvious reasons doesn’t; there are
tournaments to play.